Changeling: Taking his sweet time as usual, Clint Eastwood directed this 1920s period piece about a Los Angeles single mom (Angelina Jolie) who gets put through the ringer for insisting that the boy returned to her by the LAPD is not her son, who mysteriously disappeared five months before. Jolie has never seemed more vulnerable, but the movie itself is a little cut and dried, a true-crime B-movie tricked out like an Oscar-bait A-movie.

Choke: Sam Rockwell is magnificently scuzzy in this movie version of Chuck Palahniuk's gut-bucket novel, where he plays a sex addict who fakes the need for a Heimlich maneuver in restaurants so that people will hold him for a few moments and perhaps send cash later out of concern for his well-being. Angelica Huston plays the crazy-lady mom who may have screwed up his life forever, and writer-director Clark Gregg somehow gets all this madness and longing up there on the screen.

ARTS & CULTURE

With garage rock ambitions, remarkable chemistry and a dedication to songcraft, Bobby Hussy and Heather Sawyer’s partnership has flourished in the seven years since the Hussy was born in an east-side Madison basement.more »

A longtime staple of the Madison music scene, Jimmy Voegeli and his band, the Jimmys, have carved out an old-school Chicago blues niche fueled by horns, Hammond B-3, funk and fun. They aim to have their new CD available Aug. 7 at Live on King Street.more »

Alvin and Verlie began writing letters in 1942 when Alvin was drafted into the Army to serve in World War II. Eight years ago, their grandson — the lead singer of We Are the Willows — inherited the surviving 350 letters and wrote an album about them.more »